World Book Night 23 April - discover Quick Reads

Welcome to your dream home. Salma Khatun is extremely hopeful about Blenheim, the safe suburban development to which she, her husband and their son have just moved. Their family is in desperate need of a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like the place to make that happen. Meet your new neighbours....

Roy Grace and his family have left Sussex behind for a week's holiday in France. The website promised a grand house, but when they arrive the place is very different from the pictures. And it soon becomes clear that their holiday nightmare is only just beginning. An old enemy of Roy, a lowlife cr...

Kit de Waal and her brother and sisters had a hard childhood in the West Midlands. Her Irish mother didn't feed them, didn't believe in Christmas or birthdays, and thought the world would end in 1975. Her father saved all his money to return to the Caribbean, where he planned to make a new life w...

All her young life Effie Gillies has lived, wild and free, on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda. But when Lord Sholto visits the island, the attraction between them is instant. For one glorious week she guides the handsome young Lord around the isle, and falls in love for the first time. But...

From wronged wives to nosy neighbours, from distant dads to new-found family, from secrets to lies, fresh starts to false endings - and everything in between - this is a collection of brilliant short stories from the best writers around.

Sofia Khan is going about everything the wrong way. At least, that's what her mother, Mehnaz, thinks. Sofia is twice-divorced, homeless and - worst of all - refusing to give up on a fostered baby girl. Sofia's just not behaving like a normal woman should. Sofia doesn't see it like that. She's pla...

It's an exciting day for Timothy Flowers. It's the third of November, and it's Friday, and it's his 21st birthday. When Timothy walks to his usual street corner to see his favourite special bus, he meets Charlie. Charlie is a builder who is desperate for Timothy's help because Timothy is very tal...

At the age of 17, after a childhood in a fostered family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his ...

Lara Cliffe and her three friends are off on a mini-break for her hen party. However, on the overnight ferry, Lara finds out that Danny, her ex - the one who jilted her three weeks before their wedding - is playing in the onboard band, and he spots her in the crowd. Will she meet him the next nig...

Meet a detective on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a hired assassin facing his greatest adversary; and two passengers meeting by chance on a plane, spelling romance or something far more sinister. In his first collection of short stories, this master of crime delivers a gripp...